


Do They See Their Own Reflection in the Rain?

by zmiajas



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), byleth also really loves edelgard, dimitri has an extremely tiny reference, i really love edelgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zmiajas/pseuds/zmiajas
Summary: Edelgard and Byleth meet at the Monastery after five long years. The war may have begun, but Edelgard's biggest battle is yet to unfold.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	Do They See Their Own Reflection in the Rain?

**Author's Note:**

> didn't proofread this lol :flushed: 2nd ever fic ever be nice, no spoilers for any of the routes im only partially done with black eagles. title is a mac miller lyric. my instagram where i video edit is @zmiajas, thanks for reading

Byleth’s body was art. Not a De Kooning, but a Da Vinci; polished and mysterious, exquisitely incomprehensible. His body was art, and Edelgard wished she could display it for the world to see. Perhaps she could, if she was willing to go to great lengths to preserve it. 

Byleth stood in front of her, unflinching in both demeanor and stance. His positioning was perfect, not a single opening to where Edelgard could kill him instantly without having to feel the arduous shame and sadness of watching the life bleed slowly from her idol’s eyes. Despite apparently being “asleep” for five long years, he didn’t have a single tousled hair, a single hint of purple under his eyes, or a single scratch from the rocky bed he rested on. It was perplexing. It was beautiful. 

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she whispered. She had already killed thousands; that wasn’t the problem. Slicing the throat of a Faerghan soldier was easy. Slicing the throat of Byleth… “You can join me. Join the future I’m building for all of Fodlan. I’m doing the right thing… and even if you look me in the eyes right now and tell me I’m wrong, I’ll never stop. I can’t. Not until the nobles are gone, and not until crests are just silly little images.” She pauses, ever so briefly and ever so softly. “Please, join me. Please.” 

Hope of a positive answer swirled around in Edelgard’s head like dirty water circling a dirtier drain. She was sick, obsessed with the idea of sharing her throne with the person who she had always looked up to. She never wanted the throne forever, anyways. When she inevitably martyred herself in an act of self pity, Byleth could take the crown. It would look good on him. 

So long had she daydreamed about the days where Byleth would join her, she forgot about the situation she was in. The situation that Byleth faced her now not as a friend- not necessarily an enemy yet, but certainly no ally. Byleth was no longer looking at her. He was looking at the ground. Whatever answer he was thinking of giving was irrelevant; she could tell from his reluctance to face her alone that he would not side with her.

He finally spoke. “I…” You what? You what, Byleth? Your moral convictions are keeping you from me? Your preconceived ideas of what is good and bad that Rhea has spoonfed you are preventing you from seeing the truth? Edelgard was suddenly seething with rage. Edelgard’s rage seethed passionately, burned brightly and fiercely. But she wasn’t upset at Byleth; never. She couldn’t be. She knew this wasn’t his fault. And yet… 

Byleth had to be the one to take the fall for Rhea.

“I knew your answer before I even made my offer. That means… We’re enemies now, you and I.” Edelgard could not find the bravery or the boldness to make her words count. They fluttered, spun before falling to the ground. She knew she could never be Byleth’s enemy. Within her heart, she hoped Byleth would never consider her an enemy, either. “We may draw swords now, Professor, but I will never forget what you did for me.” 

She put her hand on the hilt of her sword. Byleth did the same.

In a blur, they had begun to fight. Swords clashed against each other, the sparks in the air both of the metal and of the heart. Edelgard was Joan of Arc, and Byleth was Pierre Cauchon. Despite the fact that they both meant to win, they were on the same side. Byleth never lost the steely look in his eyes, both vacant and determined. Edelgard seemed much less composed; still outwardly perfect, of course, but someone as close to her as Byleth was could notice the chinks in not only her physical armor, but her mental armor as well.

Byleth cut through the cacophony. He had caught Edelgard’s blade in his, and found it within reason to pause their battle. “Edelgard…” She was already forced to stop fighting, but now her mind stopped, too. He said her name. “Profess- no, Byleth…” All this room, but the two of them could only bring themselves to say each other’s names.

They looked at each other like neither of them understood who the other was. Byleth’s beauty was as enigmatic to Edelgard as a Pollock painting to Michaelangelo. He was abstract, unreadable. Edelgard was the opposite: conventional, yet new. Innovative and unique. Original. The two portraits faced each other like paintings in the Louvre. Byleth gives his half-smile, all too understanding of the emotional turmoil the woman in front of him was facing.

Byleth dropped his sword. Edelgard dropped her guard.

“Byleth, what are you-” He put a hand on her shoulder. Their eyes were interlocked, pupils tied with an invisible string, pinkies bound by the Red Thread of Fate. In this moment, there was nothing that could ever break them apart. Despite it, Edelgard knew that it wouldn’t last. Their brief sharing of love was fleeting, migrating back to the south in preparation for the long winter. That winter was Edelgard; ever-present, chilling and merciless, yet so hauntingly beautiful.

She had thoughtlessly dropped her sword on the ground to go along with Byleth’s peaceful waltz. She understood that she needed to end this, snap out of the blindly bright love that surrounded their embrace. Their hug was less than a minute, so why couldn’t it have lasted any longer? Edelgard wanted a storybook ending. What she would get was a Shakespearean tragedy; Byleth of Hamlet, and Edelgard of Ophelia. Alas, poor Yorick! The gravediggers will sow the seeds of wildflowers on Edelgard’s grave someday, watering them with their ever-flowing tears.

And then, suddenly, Edelgard remembered something. She had a dagger. Briefly, vaguely, she remembered who gave it to her. The inklings of a face, disconnected letters that represented a name that at one point she knew. For a moment, she thought it may have been Dimitri, but that seemed illogical. Strange. No, it couldn’t have been Dimitri. Regardless, that pretty little dagger was in her possession. One more move, and it would be in her hands. One more move, and Edelgard would finally be able to finish writing the chapter of her life where she faltered. She faltered and she fell in love, sacrificed her own goals momentarily just so she could embrace a man she hadn’t seen in five years. She felt like her heart was wrapped in wire, and maybe if she killed Byleth, however unsavory and devastating it would be, that wire would untangle itself and fall back into the deep pits of her soul. And this time, unlike their short lived fight, it would be painless, unexpected.

Edelgard reached for the dagger in her pocket. It wasn’t stealthy, or carefully planned; the total lack of subtlety possessed some sort of cruel irony. Edelgard, the woman who has seamlessly threaded the quilt of war, cannot seem to unsheath a dagger she has carried since childhood. Edelgard knows Byleth either heard or saw her movements, better yet felt them; she did, after all, remove a hand from their embrace to fiddle with her dress. Why hasn’t Byleth done anything? Moved away? The dagger is in her hand now. Even in this time of intimacy and conflict, why hasn’t he said anything? Does he want to die? Edelgard is positioning the dagger behind his back. Goddess, why couldn’t he make this easy on her? Why couldn’t he make it a real struggle, so it felt like a fight and not an assassination? Why did he have to be so beautiful, and yet so catastrophic?

She stabbed him. Edelgard shoved the dagger unrulily into his back, without any foresight as to where it would land. She thought it missed the spine, because it felt like she was just a few inches of muscle away from being able to see the knife poke out on the other end. Blood was spilling from both sides of Byleth, like a candle used for far too long and far too much. Byleth’s half-smile never left his face. He never let go of Edelgard; instead, he only sunk a bit into her, unable to support as much of his weight due to the blood loss.

Byleth didn’t fight back. Byleth let her kill him. Why? Edelgard felt betrayed. She wanted it to be disconnected, like killing cattle. Not like killing her soulmate. Why couldn’t have Byleth just taken it in stride and died in a glorious battle, instead of forgiving her in her arms? Edelgard was boiling with rage, but she couldn’t tell who it was directed it. She would never know. 

“It’s okay.” That’s the first real phrase Byleth has said since entering the Monastery with her. It snaps Edelgard out of her vindictive stupor. She holds on tighter to Byleth now. The sudden clarity has hit her with the quickness of the sun appearing after a storm. Byleth could never join her; of course not. She never expected him to join a cause that was against the very morals he abided by. But at the same time… Byleth couldn’t leave her alone. He knew he would get in her away. And so, he decided to simply take himself out of the equation. Like a balloon floating into the sky, he knew his proverbial “pop” was inevitable; he only wished for it to be out of the view of Edelgard. 

Edelgard was crying. Tears flowed like the Victoria into the Falls, endless and wracked with sobs. “Byleth, I’m sorry. I wish you were someone whose heart could be swayed by my words and deeds…” Byleth leans into her further; likely because he’s weak rather than intimate, but it feels like more of a show of love than death. “I didn’t need your words, Edelgard. I needed you. And now I do.”

Byleth died in Edelgard’s arms, in the very first place they met. It was fitting.

Byleth’s body was beautiful. His mind was a marble maze, filled with veins of diamond and mystery that when mined away at, only revealed another puzzle. He was a Da Vinci, and a man whose deeds belonged in a Homer and whose appearance belonged in the Louvre. Edelgard was going to continue his legacy, and everyone in Fodlan would know the name of the man who was the only love of Queen Edelgard Von Hresvelg.

Edelgard was going to display him for the world to see. She was willing to go to great lengths to do so.


End file.
